Through the Eyes of Mortals
by Archaeological
Summary: It's the little ones who are always caught in the middle of the struggle for power. But sometimes, when you least expect it, they lash out. Short vignettes from the point of view of Devil Survivor: Overclocked characters.
1. Kazuya

Major Overclocked spoilers. Set after Naoya's route.

 _On Kazuya's nature, the war, and his relationship with Naoya._

* * *

He tears an angel's wings with his bare hands and a feral grin, and the part of him that had been asleep and demanded vengeance, blood for blood, grows stronger under the rain of feathers.

Blood for blood. Not Cain's for Abel's, not anymore. It will be _His_ blood, and the will of every Bel inside of him cries out for battle, none louder than the human one, the only one fueled by a double betrayal.

Naoya is forgiven, because he is human and fallible and Cain and also Naoya, and neither Abel or Kazuya have known anything else, nor they need it. There is no point in that grudge anymore, not when he is able to squash him like a bug.

Naoya, who got him where he is. Naoya, who bows down to his new king with a smile because this power is what he had wanted for Kazuya, for them, for longer than humanity can remember.

Abel doesn't need that grudge because he can turn it to God along with the other Bels. They are one, again, and Abel is Kazuya as much as Kazuya is Bel, as much as they have all been pawns in Naoya's plan for vengeance, and he goes along with it because it's what he wants.

His big brother has always known him best.

Abel leaves for the demon world with a full retinue of followers, but the only one that matters is the one that stays behind, mortal and fragile but eternal in his knowledge, supporting him from a different plane, because it has never mattered where they were, when it was, who remembered or how many lives they lived, the connection between the two is old, twisted and unbreakable, and now it's time for Kazuya to hold the reigns he has ben passed.

Abel doesn't need his revenge on Naoya because Naoya served it to him on a silver platter, because his brother's spilled blood would be as meaningless as his had been, so now he turns to the source to allow Cain his.

The holy war rages, and Kazuya carves his path with the strength Abel had to fall into the abyss to find, and the power granted by a scheme thousands of years in the making. He won't let them go to waste. The first sacrifice walks once more, and he'll make Heaven tremble.


	2. Atsuro

_The lockdown changed everything Atsuro took for granted._

* * *

Atsuro waits.

It's been months since the lockdown—since the world was turned upside down and a portion of the sky became a red swirl, and his friend walked through it to seize victory or never be seen again. He only knows he's still alive because Naoya tells him so, and Naoya may have done many wrong things, but he's never lied to him.

He remembers, on those final days, being afraid for humanity, realizing that he was witnessing something much bigger than them, than Tokyo, bigger than the world itself. But life kept going, and true to his promise, Kazuya had kept humans out of the holy war in the best way he could—by bringing war to Heaven. And, jarringly, Atsuro had been thrust back to his daily life and expected to act as if nothing had happened. As if he hadn't spent a week in hell and let his best friend leave alone to finish what he couldn't.

' _If we had altered the code_ ' is the thought that takes hold of his mind over and over, and he has to will himself to ignore it, because dwelling in what ifs will only make him miserable.

He has tried to visit Naoya, to talk directly with Kazuya to make sure he still is the person he remembers and put his mind to rest, but he is no longer allowed in the server room, and Naoya never leaves it. It's too dangerous, he says. We can't let our guard down, he says. _Be patient._

So Atsuro waits, and as Yuzu greets him from the other side of the crowded street, waving and smiling just for him, he realizes that, as much as he had wished for this when the world was much simpler, he'd gladly give it up if it meant having his friend and his mentor back


	3. Naoya

_Cursing Cain wasn't His brightest moment._

* * *

As a side effect of his unique nature, Naoya has learned to not grow attached. Centuries pass, entire civilizations rise and crumble, families and friends live and die, and while he lives and dies too, he is reborn the same each time as the rest of the world keeps zooming past him.

There are two constants in Naoya's lives: revenge and the curse.

 _(If you dug a little bit deeper, just a few inches under the surface, the other two constants would be Abel and guilt.)_

He hasn't been able to grow a single weed for millennia, no matter where or when he tried, as if God was telling him that every inch of soil on the planet had been tainted by his brother's blood, and he could never run away from that.

Through the last millennia, Naoya has been many things, always constructing, because no matter what role God tries to shoehorn him in, he's a farmer first and foremost, and one must always sow before being able to reap. When he couldn't tend to crops, he built cities, when he couldn't build, he crafted, and now that that isn't practical anymore, he codes. He's still a farmer at heart, but still of watching his crops grow, he does so with code.

While he has kept sowing, his seeds are now words and contacts and the tie that binds him to his new cousin, his old brother. And, just like when he worked the earth, he has to wait for the right time to plant the seed, to let it grow, to crop.

The world changes, and so do the people around him, but even if Naoya is always the same, he has learned to adapt, and also a thing or two about overestimating his reach. God, in all His stagnant glory, hasn't, because He hasn't needed to, and after so many centuries working and evolving, the time for the harvest has come, and Naoya is determined to show Him how far His creation has come.


End file.
